The season is officially over for the Belleville Senators after AHL cancels schedule and playoffs

The Belleville Senators have suited up for their last game this season.

As expected, the American Hockey League announced the cancellation of the rest of its regular season and the playoffs Monday morning. This comes after a decision by the board of governors that took less than 20 minutes during a conference call Friday.

That means the Ottawa Senators’ AHL affiliate in Belleville, which had high hopes for a long playoff run, will have to take solace in the fact that when the league went on pause the club was sitting in the top spot in the North Division with a 38-20-5 record and 81 points with a .643 winning-percentage.

The AHL wasn’t left with a lot of choice because it’s a gate-driven league and playing in empty rinks to finish the post-season in the summer just wasn’t an option. Though it wasn’t a shocker, it was just disappointing just the same.

“We knew it was coming,” Senators’ coach Troy Mann said from his Belleville home Monday afternoon. “The first couple of weeks of the pandemic you’re thinking maybe there’s always hope but after each passing day you knew that some point this announcement was going to come just because of the nature of the AHL business.

“It’s been well-documented that this isn’t a league that thrives on television revenues and major corporations, it’s a ticket-based revenue-driven business.”

The Senators were hoping some of their top prospects would be able to get the opportunity to develop by having playoff success and competing for the Calder Cup. Yes, the organization had one of the youngest teams in the AHL but it was considered a contender by many around the league.

That would have assisted the development of prospects like Josh Norris, Vitaly Abramov, Drake Batherson, Alex Formenton, Christian Wolanin, Erik Brannstrom, Marcus Hogberg, Filip Gustavsson and Joey Daccord. Many of those players will push for spots in Ottawa next season. While they had an opportunity for development this season, the playoffs would have been a chance to take it to the next level.

“From the team’s perspective I think all coaches have a feeling when you’ve got a special group together,” Mann said. “There’s no guarantees but I did feel this group really came together this year. There were some moments of adversity throughout the whole year — from the goaltending situation early, then I think we used 16 defencemen and I’m pretty sure we went with 11-7 in January because of the logistics of our lineup.

“To continue winning, and to lead the league in road wins, that tells you a lot about your team when you’re able to put up 23 road wins with five or six left at the pause. That just tells you about the character of this team and just how much enjoyed being around each other. I think the coaching staff would agree with me as well that it was certainly a pleasure to coach this group. That’s hugely disappointing.

“It’s just a missed opportunity.”

And, it also a chance for the city and fans in Ottawa excited about the future of the team to rally around Belleville going into the post-season.

The Senators brought hockey back to the community in the 2017-18 campaign and were eliminated on the final day of the season to close out their second season last spring. Last week, Belleville mayor Mitch Panciuk posted a video from a CAA Arena showing that the ice had been removed and expressing disappointing about the club not playing.

“If you look at the three years, the first year there was excitement of the American league coming to town and last year we made that great second half push,” Mann said. “All of a sudden, this year we’ve got a first place club and you always hope that a playoff push, and if you can make some hay in a playoff push, it results in more fans coming out and the community usually rallies around a team.

“That’s something that we were hoping for as well.”

General manager Pierre Dorion, who is rebuilding this organization with young players, stated in a conference call last month that if the AHL cancelled its season that would be a difficult blow to the organization because success in the top development league can go a long way, down the road.

“We want to congratulate our players, coaches and the staff in Belleville for their great work this season,” said Dorion in a statement Monday. “We were eager to see a significant part of the organization’s future play important late-season games and to experience what we anticipated to be a lengthy playoff run.

“Without question, this season’s team in Belleville was composed of our best group of prospects in some time, and their success remains key to our rebuild. I’m additionally disappointed for the fans in Belleville as I know many shared in our excitement of competing in the Calder Cup Playoffs.”

Of course, the players had the opportunity to develop this year and they’ll be ready for next season to push for spots in Ottawa.

“Guys have improved. At the end of the day, you want to see progression from your prospects and as much as you want to see down the stretch how they would have reacted to the pressure, there’s still plenty of development that went on,” Mann said.

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